Home and Tired

We had to stay an extra night in Hononlulu because we couldn't get a plane out on Sat night. We left Sunday night at 11:00, flew to San Francsisco, took the BART to Oakland, flew to Salt Lake City and got the last flight to Tucson on Monday night - getting home at 11:00 PM. School started Tuesday and I don't remember being as tired as I was every afternoon last week. This morning I was at the Y at 5:30 and swam 350 yards in twenty minutes. I do think it gave me more energy today. Oh yeah, one other minor detail - my classroom is one of three in the school with no air conditioning. It is broken and they are hoping it will be fixed this week. You know how hot it is in Tucson right now? We spent about twenty minutes in the hall, which has air after lunch and then we went to the cafeteria where it has air to work on math. I have 12 students, 3rd to fifth grade and three aides. Two boys have autism and they each have a one on one aide, then there is the classroom aide, who is a man. We are doing pretty good for one day of preparation before school started. I hope to make 16 days because then I start making $50 more a day and it is retroactive back to the first day. I've got to pay for the Hawaii trip, you know. My own goal is to make it nine weeks and I hope they have found a teacher by then. I do enjoy having my own class compared to being a substitute and I love the kids already but I'm not sure how long my body can take it.

This afternoon our LIFE group had a birthday party at a Mexican restaurant for Lois who was eighty something and Bobby V who will be 39 on Saturday. We had a good meal and a delicious chocolate cake - from Costco. What? You thought I would bake a cake? Yeah right! The people at the restaurant were so nice we left half the cake for the staff.

Guess I better quit blogging and plan for tomorrow. One day at a time. Pray for me.

Finally - Hawaii!

We finally made it to Hawaii. If you read my blog you will remember that we tried at Easter and we got to Salt Lake City and we had a seat on the bus, as Tom likes to say, and the flight was canceled. Then in June we were going again and before we even left Tucson we realized we weren't going to get a flight to Hawaii so we went to Atlanta with the intentions of going to London. Well we ended up going to Boston and we really did enjoy that trip.

I don't think I posted about our trip to San Francisco. We did that in July with our kids from Georgia. We stayed at a Coast Guard Temporary housing in Novato. Our son, who is the pilot is also in the Navy reserves so he can stay in these places. It was really nice - a two bedroom apartment. There were wild deer on the property. Novato is about 30 miles north of San Francisco and a great place to stay. My grandson, daughter-in-law and I saw Hairspray on the opening day while we were there.





I can't say enough about our hotel Waikiki Sand Villa We stayed here in January but this time we didn't even make a reservation before we got here because of the chances of not making it. Anyway we booked it online from the airport in Honolulu and when we got here they remembered us and gave us a corner room on the 10th floor. We have this view from one balcony.



and from the other corner balcony you can just see the ocean past the hotels. It is about 3 blocks to the Waikiki beach



Besides the fact that the prices are reasonable (a little higher than in January) the most scary but miraculous thing happened. Yesterday when we went to the beach we left Tom's wallet with both our ids and credit cards, cash, his cell phone and my ipod in a safe in the room. As we were walking back from the beach Tom asked me if I locked the safe. I said "No" did you? Well...
We got back to the room and even though the maid had cleaned up our open safe was untouched. We saw the maid in the hall and she told us she had called down for security to check it out. I thanked her profusely for being an honest person.

We are going home tomorrow night because I have taken a long term sub position for a special education classroom at the elementary school where I usually sub. I didn't find out until Monday afternoon and we left Wed morning. I told them I couldn't be there for teachers first day on Friday. Our flight is an overnight flight - through San Francisco, then to SLC and finally by Sunday night we will be home. All the flights look good except the one to Tucson from Salt Lake, so worst case scenario is we will spend the night in SLC and come home Monday morning, also a teacher workday. Students show up on Tuesday. The school knows I may not be there until noon on Monday. I might tell you more about getting my room ready on Tuesday but my power on my laptop is getting low. we don't have wi-fi in the room but we do by the pool - where I have been eating breakfast and writing this. Dina, if you are reading this, I plan to call you today.

Tagged by Bobby Valentine

My friend and fellow blogger, Bobby V, has tagged me. He has asked that I divulge eight random facts, and meaningless!, about myself. So here goes ...

1. I was on the Art Linkletter Show when I was in 6th grade

2. I skipped the B-2 (We had semester classes in Los Angeles)

3. I wrote a letter to Ricky Nelson and invited him to a Sadie Hawkins dance when I was in 10th grade. He declined.

4. I was voted "Most Talkative" by my senior class.

5. I started teaching myself piano when I was in elementary school - on a neighbor's old - old piano. Later I took lessons and got my own piano - I have had 4 pianos - and I still don't play for anyone but myself - and kids.

6. I went to a party at Pat Boone's house (at the time he was renting Humphrey Bogart's home in Beverly Hills. I went with my Pepperdine College Sorority - Kappa Kappa

7. I used to Ice Skate and learned to do a "waltz jump" (for you non skaters that means I could jump about an inch off the ice)

8. I don't ice skate anymore since I fell just standing still on the ice 2 summers ago when I went with the youth group from church. I decided at that time that 62 was too old to be ice skating.

I tag Desert Diva, Beverly, Scott, Dina, Candy, and Tina